Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: The Slytherin Version
by wraith21
Summary: Harry is 17, Hogwarts is a university, and he chooses Slytherin, not Gryffindor. In the first chapter he discovers he can talk to snakes and is waiting for his life to get worse when he is sent to military reform school, but instead, everything is going to change.
1. Chapter 1

-1-

I had always wondered if I was crazy, and if I was so angry because I was crazy, or if I was so crazy because I was angry.

I was different. Things happened around me that were not normal. My aunt and uncle knew, and I think that's why they treated me like shit. Whatever it was, they thought they could stamp it out of me by keeping me down. And I mean that literally. I didn't even have a real room, but lived in a cupboard underneath the stairs. I thought bitterly how it was my seventeenth birthday, and my only present was knowing that in two months I would be sent to military reform school for my "problems."

I live with my aunt and uncle because my parents died in a car crash when I was just a baby. I survived. What I was left with, besides being an orphan, was a lightning shaped scar on my forehead. The scar more than anything bothers my aunt. Whenever she sees it she makes this face at me, a kind of dissatisfied disgust that lingers on my forehead. It makes me want to punch her in the face.

But back to being different. What I did this time—I don't even know how it happened—was let a snake loose at the reptile center. My science class was there on an end-of-year trip. I had no friends. Anyone who got close to me would be beat up by my cousin Dudley and his gang. Dudley used to be fat, like a small whale, but then around two years ago he started boxing. I didn't think Dudley learning to punch harder and faster was cause for celebration, but the Dursleys (my aunt and uncle) loved it. Awards he'd won were all over the house. I hated them because they were a reminder that I'd served as Dudley's first punching bag.

I thought about this at the reptile house, as I was alone, as usual. I could see Dudley and his gang out of the corner of my eye. I moved out of their range of vision in case they got bored. I wasn't afraid of getting beat up. I was afraid of what might happen, something not normal, if they tried.

I was looking at a snake display when it happened. I knew I was crazy, because the snake started talking to me.

"Hello," it hissed. It was a large boa constrictor. "Where are you from?" it asked.

I didn't care. I talked back at it. I had no one else to talk to, anyways.

"Here," I said. "You?"

It tapped the glass with its tail. The sign read that it was from Brazil.

"Do you like it here?" I asked the snake.

"Hell no," it hissed.

I chuckled darkly. "Yeah," I said. "I feel the same way."

In my left line of vision I saw Dudley watching me. There was a mean gleam in his pig-like eyes. It was the look he had before someone else was about to suffer for his amusement.

Then two things happened at the same time. Dudley and his friends started walking towards me, and the glass in the snake's cage vanished.

I'm not sure who was more surprised. Me, Dudley, or the snake.

"Thankss, amigo," the snake hissed, as it uncoiled itself onto the cold stone floor of the center. The snake was massive. Dudley, coward that he was, backed way up, flattening himself against the wall as the snake slithered past him. Then, people started screaming.

The reptile house was chaos. Then I saw something really bad.

The giant snake was coiled around a little kid, who was slowly turning blue.

Without thinking, I ran up to it and said, "Let her go."

"Amigo," it said. "I haven't had fresh food in yearss."

"If you stay here and eat the kid, they'll catch you," I told it. The little girl's mother was kicking the snake and screaming.

With a sharp hiss, the snake nodded his assent and uncoiled around the girl, slithering rapidly towards the exit. The little girl fell to the floor, unconscious.

I watched it go, almost envying it. The mother next to me was still screaming, and as the snake headed to freedom, I saw Dudley talking to the security guard, pointing at me.

The guard walked up towards me. "Let's go kid," he said. "You're under arrest." Two other cop cars had shown up. I was put in the back of one and taken to jail, then juvenile hall, then court. After that I was being sent to military reform school, but I was technically under house arrest at my aunt and uncle's in the meantime. A metal bracelet encircled my left ankle.

I was thinking about this, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, angry as ever, when a large, booming knock came from the front door of the Dursley's boring suburban house.


	2. Chapter 2

"BOOM." I sat up and banged my head on the cupboard, showering myself with spiders. Then, another "BOOM."

I could hear my Uncle Vernon's voice upstairs. "What in the blazes is that?" he yelled. I heard my aunt's higher pitched voice as well. After some arguing, I heard my uncle stomp down the stairs towards the front door. Gingerly, I opened the door to my cupboard, and through the crack saw my Uncle Vernon, swearing under his breath, reach for the door, open and it and yell "What the—" but he was cut off by an even louder voice bellowing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY!"

Forgetting my usual habit of avoiding my aunt or uncle whenever possible, I crawled out of the cupboard and headed towards the door. From the back, my uncle's neck looked purple. There, in the doorway, was the largest man I'd ever seen. He was huge, with a big, gruff beard, and was carrying a small, pink umbrella and a white box.

My uncle was having trouble forming sentences, he was so angry. The large man stared at Uncle Vernon, and then back at me, behind him, in my oversized clothes (Dudley's leftovers) brushing cobwebs out of my hair, the door to my cupboard left open.

"DURSELY, YA GREAT PRUNE," he yelled, "YA DON'T EVEN GIVE HARRY A PROPER ROOM BUT KEEP HIM IN A CUPBOARD?"

Whatever other thoughts I might have about this giant guy, I decided, he was all right. He was the first person in my entire life who had ever taken my side. All my anger rushed back, and I felt furious with my uncle all over again. Why was I in a fucking cupboard under the stairs? Who does that?

This was the best thing I'd seen all week, or even the best thing I'd seen in years. My uncle did look like he was turning into a prune, his neck the ugliest shade of purple I'd ever seen it.

"Now, _listen here, you_.." began my uncle, but the giant brushed past him, knocking my uncle aside.

"Well, happy birthday, Harry," he said, crouching so he could fit in the house, he was so tall. He extended the white box to me.

"It's nothin' much, but got you a cake. Might have sat on it at some point, though."

"Thanks," I said, opening the white box to find a squashed chocolate birthday cake, with " _Happy Birthday Harry_ " scrawled across it in green icing.

Behind me, I heard a petulant shriek. My bony Aunt Petunia had come down the stairs, and was wearing a dressing gown.

"How—HOW DARE YOU!" she stammered at the giant.

Something seemed to click in the pro-wrestler's mind.

"Yeh mean," he said. " _Yeh haven't told him?"_ He looked back at me.

"Told me what?" I asked, coolly, looking back and forth between my aunt, uncle, and the giant. There was movement at the top of the stairs.

"We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said my uncle. "Swore we'd stomp it out of him!"

"Stop to what?" I asked, slightly louder this time.

"I forbid you!" shrieked my aunt.

"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," said the giant. "Harry—yer a wizard."

There was dead silence in the house. Then, I doubled over, laughing hysterically.

"Right," I said. "Right. Sure."

No one else was laughing.

"No, really," said the giant. "Yer a wizard."

From inside the pocket of his large trench coat he withdrew a letter. It was different. The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp. It was addressed to me, or: _Mr. H. Potter, The Cupboard Under the Stairs, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey._ I froze. This felt very strange, and very real.

The giant chuckled. "Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared, or angry?"

I immediately thought of the snake. I carefully opened the heavy letter. It read:

 _HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

 _Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc, Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards)_

 _Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1, and we await your owl by no later than 31 July._

 _Yours sincerely,_

 _Minerva, McGonagall; Deputy Headmistress._

I folded the letter and looked back at the giant. My craziness was, if nothing else, really well thought out and detailed. It was also July thirty-first. I thought of my horrible life with the Dursley's, and reform school, and decided to believe, if only because it was the only good thing that had ever happened to me.

"Um," I said to the giant, "What's your name?"

He laughed, tilting his head back. "Hagrid," he said. We shook hands. "Pleased to meet yeh, Harry, as a young man. Yeh have no idea." I could have sworn there were tears in his eyes as he looked away.

This started to really hit me. I had a million questions.

"What does it mean, they await my owl?" I asked, remembering the date.

"Gallopin gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid.

Uncle Vernon chose at this time to cut in. "He's not going," he said harshly.

"And I'd like to see a great muggle like you stop him," retorted Hagrid.

Hagrid looked between the Dursely's and me. "Harry," he said, "I'll write to Dumbledore and tell him you've got yer letter. How about you go and get yer things, and then we'll go at the stroke of midnight."

I glanced aside at the large clock in the kitchen. It was eleven-thirty.

I headed towards the stairs and my cupboard, and saw Dudley sitting at the top of the stairs, watching the exchange between my aunt and uncle and Hagrid silently. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. Rather than the usual bullying or mean comment, he said nothing.

I packed my things in a small beat up backpack I'd had for years. I didn't have much. Then I headed back towards Hagrid at the front door. What was an argument had escalated into a fight.

"CAR CRASH!" bellowed Hagrid. "A car crash kill Lily and James Potter!"

He stopped yelling when he saw me. My uncle did, indeed, look like a fucking vegetable on the verge of exploding.

"Harry," said Hagrid, "I didn't realize how much yeh didn't know. I'm not sure if I'm the right one to tell yeh, but someone has to."

I looked in between what were technically my relatives and Hagrid, who towered over them, who had been better to me than anyone ever had been, and nodded.

Hagrid took a deep breath. "Yer mum and dad didn't die in a car crash. They were murdered. Murdered by the worst wizard o' our time: _Lord Voldemort._ " Hagrid shuddered when he said the name. Then he kept going: "You survived, yeh were just a baby when I found yeh, I brought yeh here myself. That's how yeh got that scar."

Compulsively, I rubbed the scar on my forehead. _Lord Voldemort._ I would never forget the name. My uncle took this opportunity to assert himself once and for all. "Haven't I told you he's not going! He's going to Stonewall and he'll be grateful for it," he hissed.

"He'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbl—"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled my uncle.

But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his pink umbrella and whirled it over his head. "NEVER," he thundered, "INSULT. ALBUS DUMBLEDORE. IN-FRONT-OF-ME."

He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air and pointed it at Dudley at the top of the stairs. There was a flash of violet light, and a weird squeal. Dudley then, without warning, yelling, fell over the railing at the top of the stairs, landing with a crack at a bad angle, his neck hitting my open door to my former cupboard on his way down.

I just knew, knew by the way his neck was in relation to the rest of his body, the way he was sprawled out on the floor, that he was dead.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

I was sitting in the sidecar of a giant motorcycle, with all my stuff—which wasn't much—and the giant, who had introduced himself as Hagrid, was crying silently. I was stunned. I hated Dudley, had always hated Dudley, had even wished him dead, but the reality was different. A dark, fucked up part of me also refused to care. Dudley had had everything. He had loving parents, who gave him whatever he wanted, and friends, and a normal future, and was still a piece of shit as a person. Mostly I felt bad for the giant, the first person who had done anything for me in my entire life.

"Dumbledore's on his way to take care o' it," he muttered between sobs. "I just got ter calm myself down before we get goin'."

After wiping his wet, tear-strained face with the back of his hand, he told me: "I'd be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts. I'm—er—not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter come get yeh—one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job—"

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" I asked. I liked the giant, but I wasn't sure I trusted him. I didn't want to die in a freak motorcycle accident five minutes after my life started to get more interesting, and the motorcycle I was sitting in looked larger and weirder than any I'd ever seen. I had visions of it exploding upon Hagrid turning the key in the ignition.

"Oh, well—" said Hagrid, "I was at Hogwarts meself but I—er—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore. I just—I can't believe what just' happened."

I said nothing. If Dudley's death was something that was supposed to weigh on me, in exchange for whatever this was— _Hogwarts_ —I was more than willing to deal with that, if it meant getting out of fucking Privet Drive, hopefully forever. Still, that was dependent upon the giant, Hagrid, and at this point, even though he had stopped crying, I wasn't sure he could make it from point A to point B.

"Why were you expelled?" I asked.

"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," he said loudly. He had also stopped crying, but his face was still white. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."

He then took off his thick black coat and threw it at me.

"You can kip under that," he told me. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

With that, the engine of the motorcycle gunned to life, and we were off, suddenly ascending. I would be lying if I said I wasn't freaked out, but then, I realized, this was preferable to what my life had been. Anything was preferable to what my life had been.

I woke up early the next morning. I was afraid to open my eyes.

"It was a dream," I told myself. "I dreamed a crazy giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was a wizard, and murdered Dudley. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in the fucking cupboard, with spiders as my roommates."

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise. Tap, tap, tap.

"All right," I mumbled. "I'm getting up."

I sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off me. I was in a hut full of sunlight, and Hagrid himself was asleep on a collapsed sofa and there was an owl—seriously—an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Before I had passed out the night before, Hagrid had told me that on my seventeenth birthday a charm, which was dependent on me living with the Dursleys, had been lifted, so I could learn to do magic properly. I flexed my hands. I could do something. I would not longer be a worthless delinquent with a weird scar and messy hair. If nothing else, I was motivated for the first time ever.

I got to my feet and went straight to the window and jerked it open. The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered on to the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.

"Hey, don't do that," I told it. Brilliant, I know.

I tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at me and carried on savaging the coat.

"Hagrid," I said loudly, feeling like an idiot, unsure what else to do, "There's an owl—"

"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.

"What?"

"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets."

Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets, mostly of stuff I'd never seen before. I finally pulled out a bag of strange-looking coins.

Hagrid was still kind of delirious. "Give him five knuts," he said sleepily.

"Knuts?"

"The little bronze ones."

I counted out five small bronze coins and the owl held out its leg to me, which had a small leather pouch attached to it. I dropped the coins into the pouch and the owl almost immediately, and with kind of an attitude—it was still a fucking owl—flew out the open window.

Hagrid then yawned loudly, and sat up and stretched.

"Best be off, Harry, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff for school."

I was still looking at the coins, turning them over in my hand. Admittedly, they were sort of cool. The euphoria I'd felt at being a wizard—and again, there was a chance I was in an insane asylum, screaming at a white wall, but I decided not to care—had been punctured by a reality that had plagued me all my life: I'd had no money, and the Dursley's had constantly reminded me that I was a burden to them.

"Um—Hagrid?" I asked quietly.

"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on a pair of enormous boots.

"I haven't got any money." I almost added as an afterthought that my aunt and uncle would in no way pay for a private school, but the idea was so laughable I didn't even go there.

"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"

I didn't have time to hide the shock on my face.

"How-?" I began, but Hagrid merely chuckled.

"First stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold—an' I wouldn't say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."

"Wizards have _banks?"_ I said, stupidly.

"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."

I dropped my bit of sausage. " _Goblins?_ " What in the actual fuck.

"Yeah—so yeh'd be mad ter try and rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry. Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe—'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business."

I had so many questions, I didn't know where to start, so I decided to say nothing. Hagrid watched me quietly. I wasn't sure what I looked like. He was staring at me with a look that wasn't quite pity, more empathy. I decided I liked Hagrid, whatever his faults. It took a second to realize what the look was. I had never had a person observe me, not to criticize me, but because they actually gave a shit about me.

"Got everythin'?" asked Hagrid, after I'd finished my sausage. "Come on, then."

I followed Hagrid out of the hut and found myself in a dark forest. I realized I had no idea where the hell we were. The motorcycle flight the night before had been under the cover of darkness, so I did not know where we had ended up.

Soon we were seated back in the giant motorbike, and I decided regarding questions, I had so fucking many, I had to start somewhere.

"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" I asked.

"Spells—enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding the newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the high security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way—Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."

 _Dragons_. I was interested. I realized Hagrid had pulled a piece of parchment out of his now infamous, multi-pocketed coat, and was handing it to me.

"Here's yer letter, Harry, got a list o' schoolbooks fer yeh. I took it off yeh last night when yeh fell asleep."

I took it and unfolded it, and read:

 _Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:_

 _Uniform:_

 _First year students will require:_

 _Three sets of plain work robes (black)_

 _One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear_

 _One pair protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)_

 _One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)_

 _Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags_

 _Set books:_

 _The Standard Book of Spells (Year 1)_

 _A History of Magic_

 _Magical Theory_

 _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_

 _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_

 _Magical Drafts and Potions_

 _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_

 _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection_

 _Other Equipment:_

 _1 wand_

 _1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)_

 _1 set glass or crystal phials_

 _1 set brass scales_

 _Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad_

 _ALSO BE REMINDED THAT FIRST-YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS_

Everything on the list was so alien, I had no idea what to say, so I went with: "Can we buy all this in London?"

"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid, and then he revved the giant engine, and we were off.


End file.
